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It was a little bit more interesting than the previous evening's Coronation Street (almost): they used to be on around 9.00 am on ITV on Tuesday mornings (Monday's Newcomers was on at the same time, the day before), until TV-am arrived, and so they moved to around 5.00 am and then onto Channel 4 at around the same time. If you think that Dry Cleaning; Trainspotting; Trade Unions; Electricity Pylons; Metal Detectors; the Health and Safety Executive, or Social Workers - or even the Testcard - make great programmes (cf half of Channel 4's scheduling output back in 1983), you ain't seen nothing yet! A "you can play it yourself on a Yamaha keyboard in a GCSE Music lesson at school" theme tune introduces the programme that the late Victor Lewis-Smith would have loved to take the Mickey out of - the Development of the Testcard, anyone?
"Hello and welcome to the Independent Broadcasting Authority's weekly engineering announcements for the television and aerial trade" said a non-celebrity presenter, almost in as many words. Occasionally, local ITV stations like Central used to tell us in the mid 1980s whether Sutton Coldfield would be on reduced power all morning due to maintenance work, or would be off-air altogether until 4.00 pm. This programme had two sorts of people watching: A) Those who were indeed in the television aerial trade and were official members of the Confederation of Aerial Industries; and: B) Anoraks who are just interested as a hobby as to the like of TV aerials and transmitters - me for example, wishing that I could also get both a good Belmont as well as Waltham picture on my bedroom TV, but the aerial people said that it was a waste of time getting another aerial in the roof, left-pointing to my existing one. Looking back, they were interesting, and the IBA replaced by the ITC was one reason why they ended, and was a true end of an era. I believe that they were first shown every week (sans Christmas, New Year and some other weeks) since around 1970.
Surely as the viewer is the "customer" when watching television and listening to the radio, the information given would be just as relevant to them as it would be to insiders in the broadcasting industry? Watching an old edition, it is fascinating to know which UHF (I nearly wrote "UHT") channels television channels had in those old analogue days of the 1980s - I know that Waltham had BBC 2 on channel 64, and that was easy to remember as (19)64 was the year that BBC 2 first began on. Different areas of Britain were mentioned; it always seem to be somewhere in the Welsh Valleys or Scottish Highlands where the problem was, and it is interesting which frequencies radio stations had, and whether they were to be interrupted due to the work that was to happen.
Not long after getting a portable TV in my bedroom (with Teletext for me to play Bamboozle on - they were the days!) I used to try out different portable aerials from Argos which insisted in the instructions to "place it in an identical direction as the aerials on the roofs in my location". I added a signal booster and got two regions for the price of one! I wondered why my local newspaper had both Central and Yorkshire listings on the TV guide pages. Not long before that, I thought that all my birthdays had come at once when we had atmospheric conditions - to receive Meridian in the East Midlands (as well as Anglia and the London region) was like something out of this world - even though: A) the picture and sound wasn't too good; and: B) it would all fade away like a dream a couple of hours later.
I knew latterly that Thames and LWT used Crystal Palace (that is the transmitter of that name, and not the football club); ATV and later Central used Sutton Coldfield; Granada (pst-1968 North West England only) used Winter Hill (and not Blackpool Tower, unlike some radio stations - I found out about that when I was with Digital Spy - a very long story); and Yorkshire used Emley Moor - I knew that. Staying in the same place all my life, (well, the same city at least), my motto was always: "variety is the spice of life", and that I wanted to see more of the world (or Great Britain, at least) courtesy of local and regional television and radio - I wished that my late parents had moved from place to place all over the country over the years instead of staying in the same boring place all of the time. At least when I stay in Premier Inn rooms all over the country, I can experience different regions, but it was not the same as the experience I would have had if I had done it back in the 1970s and 1980s.
The real "inside information" as to what sort aerial to be used, so as not to have too much of a snowy or ghosty picture, was what these bods were mostly going on about - I would hazard a guess that those who eventually worked in the TV aerial industry as soon as they left school (and had got GCSEs in associated subjects such as Physics, Engineering and Technology), must have been inspired by these IBA bulletins at the time. Sutton Coldfield was ghosty to me where I was, but not if I had been living at the bottom of the hill. Even I used to be interested in TV aerials on local rooftops, looking up and getting stiff-necks walking down the street to school, even without a compass, seeing who was "Sutton Coldfield" and who was "Waltham" like my family was, although I wouldn't minded having "Belmont" in those pre-Channel 5 and cable and digital TV says of the late 1980s. A pity that those who have television sets are more interested on what is on the channels themselves rather than the "ins and outs" of how it gets there in the first place. Getting used to various phrases like "switching breaks" sounded fascinating as well.
How many people saw a or television or radio transmitter on a long drive, and thought that it must have been Blackpool (or Eiffel) Tower or just a plain electricity pylon? As I am a person who used to be tuned to local radio stations on my personal radio during National Express coach trips across the country, retuning to the next area when the previous station's signal fades away, and moving onto the next one and so on until I reach my destination, I was indeed interested. Television and radio frequencies were of interest to me, and in particular, I have always had a good knowledges of the FM numbers of BBC local radio frequencies. And I think that those sorts of people were what these engineering announcements were strongly focused at.
I have to admit that the IBA was indeed my favourite regulator for commercial television rather than the ITC or Ofcom - I have always assumed that Mary Whitehouse figures used to be in charge of the regulators back then and it was a good thing; the fact that some programmes would have been turned down before they even had a chance to be scheduled. Why aren't the conservatism of British broadcasting like this anymore? That is one of the many reasons that IBA engineering announcements were great to see so many years on. I mean, you never get this sort of social excitement with Ofcom, do you?
"Hello and welcome to the Independent Broadcasting Authority's weekly engineering announcements for the television and aerial trade" said a non-celebrity presenter, almost in as many words. Occasionally, local ITV stations like Central used to tell us in the mid 1980s whether Sutton Coldfield would be on reduced power all morning due to maintenance work, or would be off-air altogether until 4.00 pm. This programme had two sorts of people watching: A) Those who were indeed in the television aerial trade and were official members of the Confederation of Aerial Industries; and: B) Anoraks who are just interested as a hobby as to the like of TV aerials and transmitters - me for example, wishing that I could also get both a good Belmont as well as Waltham picture on my bedroom TV, but the aerial people said that it was a waste of time getting another aerial in the roof, left-pointing to my existing one. Looking back, they were interesting, and the IBA replaced by the ITC was one reason why they ended, and was a true end of an era. I believe that they were first shown every week (sans Christmas, New Year and some other weeks) since around 1970.
Surely as the viewer is the "customer" when watching television and listening to the radio, the information given would be just as relevant to them as it would be to insiders in the broadcasting industry? Watching an old edition, it is fascinating to know which UHF (I nearly wrote "UHT") channels television channels had in those old analogue days of the 1980s - I know that Waltham had BBC 2 on channel 64, and that was easy to remember as (19)64 was the year that BBC 2 first began on. Different areas of Britain were mentioned; it always seem to be somewhere in the Welsh Valleys or Scottish Highlands where the problem was, and it is interesting which frequencies radio stations had, and whether they were to be interrupted due to the work that was to happen.
Not long after getting a portable TV in my bedroom (with Teletext for me to play Bamboozle on - they were the days!) I used to try out different portable aerials from Argos which insisted in the instructions to "place it in an identical direction as the aerials on the roofs in my location". I added a signal booster and got two regions for the price of one! I wondered why my local newspaper had both Central and Yorkshire listings on the TV guide pages. Not long before that, I thought that all my birthdays had come at once when we had atmospheric conditions - to receive Meridian in the East Midlands (as well as Anglia and the London region) was like something out of this world - even though: A) the picture and sound wasn't too good; and: B) it would all fade away like a dream a couple of hours later.
I knew latterly that Thames and LWT used Crystal Palace (that is the transmitter of that name, and not the football club); ATV and later Central used Sutton Coldfield; Granada (pst-1968 North West England only) used Winter Hill (and not Blackpool Tower, unlike some radio stations - I found out about that when I was with Digital Spy - a very long story); and Yorkshire used Emley Moor - I knew that. Staying in the same place all my life, (well, the same city at least), my motto was always: "variety is the spice of life", and that I wanted to see more of the world (or Great Britain, at least) courtesy of local and regional television and radio - I wished that my late parents had moved from place to place all over the country over the years instead of staying in the same boring place all of the time. At least when I stay in Premier Inn rooms all over the country, I can experience different regions, but it was not the same as the experience I would have had if I had done it back in the 1970s and 1980s.
The real "inside information" as to what sort aerial to be used, so as not to have too much of a snowy or ghosty picture, was what these bods were mostly going on about - I would hazard a guess that those who eventually worked in the TV aerial industry as soon as they left school (and had got GCSEs in associated subjects such as Physics, Engineering and Technology), must have been inspired by these IBA bulletins at the time. Sutton Coldfield was ghosty to me where I was, but not if I had been living at the bottom of the hill. Even I used to be interested in TV aerials on local rooftops, looking up and getting stiff-necks walking down the street to school, even without a compass, seeing who was "Sutton Coldfield" and who was "Waltham" like my family was, although I wouldn't minded having "Belmont" in those pre-Channel 5 and cable and digital TV says of the late 1980s. A pity that those who have television sets are more interested on what is on the channels themselves rather than the "ins and outs" of how it gets there in the first place. Getting used to various phrases like "switching breaks" sounded fascinating as well.
How many people saw a or television or radio transmitter on a long drive, and thought that it must have been Blackpool (or Eiffel) Tower or just a plain electricity pylon? As I am a person who used to be tuned to local radio stations on my personal radio during National Express coach trips across the country, retuning to the next area when the previous station's signal fades away, and moving onto the next one and so on until I reach my destination, I was indeed interested. Television and radio frequencies were of interest to me, and in particular, I have always had a good knowledges of the FM numbers of BBC local radio frequencies. And I think that those sorts of people were what these engineering announcements were strongly focused at.
I have to admit that the IBA was indeed my favourite regulator for commercial television rather than the ITC or Ofcom - I have always assumed that Mary Whitehouse figures used to be in charge of the regulators back then and it was a good thing; the fact that some programmes would have been turned down before they even had a chance to be scheduled. Why aren't the conservatism of British broadcasting like this anymore? That is one of the many reasons that IBA engineering announcements were great to see so many years on. I mean, you never get this sort of social excitement with Ofcom, do you?
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